


The Bûche de Noël Job

by Ginipig



Category: Leverage
Genre: Christmas, Food, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 18:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13082868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginipig/pseuds/Ginipig
Summary: Nate has a plan for Christmas Day — drinking, working on cases, and watching football, in that order — before the team comes over for dinner. But he's not as alone as he'd thought he'd be.





	The Bûche de Noël Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [page_runner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/page_runner/gifts).



> page_runner: I had some difficulty with this one, but was eventually inspired by your note about "Nate and Eliot as...whatever Nate and Eliot are - I don't ship them but they have a fascinating dynamic." They DO have a fascinating dynamic, and I hope you like this depiction! Happy Holidays!

Nate woke on Christmas morning to someone making noise downstairs. For one glorious, groggy moment, he thought it might be Sam, out of bed and sneaking downstairs to see the presents under the tree before waking him and Maggie up.

With a searing pain in his chest as palpable as if someone had burned him with a hot iron, he remembered why that wasn’t happening, why it never would happen again. This wasn’t his and Maggie’s home in L.A.; it was his condo in Boston, above McRory’s bar. A sob escaped before he could stop it; his eyes stung as he glared at the blurry ceiling. No matter how much he drank the night or days or weeks before — and last night he drank _a lot_ , if the empty bottle of Jameson on his nightstand and his massive headache were any indications — Christmas never got any easier.

But wait. Who or what was making that noise downstairs? The team had insisted on coming over for Christmas dinner, which Nate had succeeded in pushing back to six in the evening. His clock told him it was — _Jesus Christ —_ just after ten in the morning. Surely a burglar wouldn’t be that inconsiderate.

Sophie, on the other hand …

He lurched out of bed and shuffled into the hall. He’d expected Sophie to arrive earlier than the rest of the team, in spite of his insistence that he wanted to be alone, but this was ridiculous. As he wondered whether the spiral metal staircase leading to the main floor had always been this narrow, he growled, “Sophie, we talked about this. I don’t _want_ company today —”

Words failed him when he saw who was in his apartment. He missed the last step and stumbled, though he managed to catch himself before he faceplanted on the floor.

In retrospect, that might have been less embarrassing.

“You okay?” Eliot was at the counter in a tank top, jeans, and apron, chopping vegetables. He didn’t even look up.

“I’m, uh — what are you doing here?”

“Prepping.” Eliot shifted and started shoving the vegetables inside some type of poultry in a roasting pan. “You people are the pickiest damn group of eaters I’ve ever seen, and I need to bake a ham, broil a brisket, roast a chicken, and figure out some combination of sides that will not result in Parker giving up and eating cereal. That takes time.”

“I didn’t realize you’d be here.”

“I’ll stay out of your hair. I brought a book, some beer, and there’s football on tv. You won’t hear a peep out of me. Unless you and Soph want breakfast.”

“Sophie’s — she’s not here.”

At that, Eliot did look up. If Nate didn’t know any better, he’d have thought the hitter looked uncomfortable. But the moment passed, and Eliot continued to violate the insides of that poor bird.

“Even better,” Eliot said. “I wasn’t looking forward to forced conversation with her anyway.”

Of all the members of the team, Eliot was the one who understood the value of silence and, perhaps more importantly, of minding his own damned business. If anyone else had disturbed him on Christmas, he would have kicked them out. Eliot, he could tolerate.

“Great,” Nate said. “I’ll just …” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the stairs but couldn’t figure out a good way to end the sentence. So he didn’t. He just left Eliot to his cooking and went to go take a shower.

 

* * *

 

Nate took his time in the shower, doing what he did every Christmas Day — thinking of something, anything else. He thought about some of their more recent cases, or of cases coming up, or Latimer. He thought a lot about Latimer. Why had the bastard offered him a job? A man like that did things for a reason, and while that reason might have been simply money, it was, as Nate had said, too good to be true. Something was fishy about the whole thing, and it unsettled him.

When he finished getting dressed, he debated working in his room to avoid Eliot, but eventually decided that it was his house and he should go about his day the way he’d planned — drinking, working on cases, and watching football. In that order.

Downstairs, Eliot was sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching the game. Nate joined him, but made sure all his case files were between them and deliberately did not look in Eliot’s direction as he poured himself a tall glass of Jameson. He almost wanted Eliot to say something, but if the hitter had any opinions about Nate’s drinking (or of his nonstandard choice of glass), he did an excellent job of keeping them to himself.

They sat like that for hours, not speaking to each other, their only conversation directed at the tv. Every once in a while Eliot got up to the kitchen to work on something or get another beer, and for the most part Nate was able to ignore the sappy Christmas commercials by staring stubbornly at his files, even if the words decided to blur a few times. Usually, though, he was able to tune them out as the details of the case absorbed him.

It was actually kind of nice.

Only a few things interrupted the peace, but they would have happened with or without Eliot there.

Nate’s phone kept ringing. He didn’t need the caller ID to tell him who it was, but it announced her name anyway, in big letters. The fourth time, he caught Eliot glancing at it. He flipped it over, but it continued to vibrate until it went to voicemail. Eliot said nothing.

And then there was the commercial. It was around halftime of the second game. Nate hadn’t even been paying attention; he’d been focused on Latimer’s offer and _why_ it unsettled him so much. He’d looked up for a moment to think, and there it was — a boy sitting on the floor with his father, opening a present, his face filled with pure joy.

It hit Nate like a punch in the gut, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Memories he’d spent the whole day avoiding broke free of their dam and flooded his senses.

Sam’s first Christmas, with Sam sitting in only a diaper near the tree, Maggie helping him open presents, Nate filming the whole precious thing.

Making cookies to leave for Santa, Sam’s face and hands and the table covered in frosting and edible glitter.

Building a gingerbread house, and Sam making three little people standing outside, for him, Mommy, and Daddy.

Christmas in the hospital, Sam’s face lighting up when Santa visited, even though he told Nate afterward that he didn’t believe in Santa anymore.

The first Christmas without Sam, only a few short months after he’d left them, neither him nor Maggie having the energy to even put up decorations.

Nate staggered to his feet, ignoring the files and papers and booze flying everywhere, stumbled to the bathroom, and slammed the door shut. He leaned against the door just in time for his legs to give out, and he slid to the floor, face in his hands.

It was the fourth quarter when he finally reemerged. The papers had been picked up off the floor, the booze mopped up, and a fresh bottle of Jameson waited for him on the end table. Eliot knelt in front of the oven, fiddling with some sort of electronic timer or thermometer. He didn’t move or otherwise acknowledge Nate.

Nate took an enormous swig directly from the bottle and went about reorganizing his files.

 

* * *

 

Around four, his phone buzzed with a text. Five missed calls now, and a text from Sophie.

_Thinking of you <3_

That coaxed a small smile from him, but he didn’t respond. He’d see her soon enough.

He’d only just returned to what he was thinking would be their next case — a woman who’d sold her grandmother’s heirloom necklace to one of the CASH FOR GOLD scam artists and couldn’t get it back — when he smelled a decidedly non-entree scent.

“What is that?” he snapped.

Eliot stood at the counter, rolling out dough. “Sugar cookies. Dinner won’t actually be ready until seven, and I’m pretty sure no one is going to wait until six to get here, so I thought Parker and Hardison and maybe even Sophie could be distracted by —”

“Who the hell asked you to bake cookies?”

Eliot tensed, his grip tightening slightly on the rolling pin.

“Why the hell can’t you people leave me alone for one damned day?” Nate searched for something within reach he could throw against the wall. The bottle was a no-go — it was still two-thirds full — and paper never flies as far or as hard as intended. He settled for kicking the coffee table into the wall. “I don’t want dinner, I don’t want to see anyone, and I sure as hell don’t want any goddamned cookies!”

He stormed to the stairs, trying not to inhale the sweet scents of Christmas with Sam. “Get rid of them.. If anyone needs dessert, there’s ice cream in the fridge.”

As he reached the bottom stair, his phone buzzed loudly. Before he could react, Eliot had crossed the room. He snatched the phone and tossed it at Nate with barely a glance. Nate caught it only because he didn’t have to move a muscle to do it.

“Answer it.” Eliot’s tone, as usual, was difficult to read. He returned to the kitchen and pulled a tray of cookies out of the oven. “Tell her I say hi.”

Nate looked at the screen. The sixth call today. Hardly a record, but more than last year.

He answered it. “Hi, Maggie. Merry Christmas.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry to dump on you like this,” Maggie sobbed. “But today was awful, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

“It’s okay,” Nate said, although it wasn’t, really. Talking with her on Christmas was more painful than comforting (thus why he tried to avoid it); she understood his pain in a way no one else did, but she also reminded him of his pain in a way no one else did. “I’m sorry I didn’t pick up earlier. I thought —”

Maggie chuckled thickly through her tears. “I was trying to nag you into opening up? That is how this usually goes, isn’t it?”

They talked for over an hour. When they hung up, Nate couldn’t decide whether he was glad he’d spoken to her or not. Those types of conversations were never fun, but he always felt … lighter afterward. He often likened it to draining an infected wound; the problem with that metaphor was that the wound never seemed to heal, it just festered until it needed to be drained again. On days like this, he wondered if he would ever fully heal. Or if he wanted to. Or if he would some day learn how to simply work around the pain, like an old wound that ached when the weather turned. Maybe that was the best he could hope for.

The alarm clock on his nightstand told him it was 5:15. After splashing water on his face, dressing for dinner, and psyching himself up for the team’s arrival, he went back downstairs.

But the apartment was empty.

The smell of dinner was immense, though, and the oven was still on, which Nate took as a good sign. A note on the counter said:

_Went home to shower. If the timer goes off before I get back, take the pan out of the oven. DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ELSE._

_-E_

The ham, chicken, and brisket were covered in foil on the stove. The microwave seemed to contain several sides. Per instructions, Nate didn’t touch any of them.

He did, however, bend down to look inside the oven. It contained a rectangular pan a bit larger than the dimensions of a yellow legal pad, and about half an inch deep. In it sat what looked — and certainly smelled — like chocolate cake.

The cookies were nowhere to be seen. Not even in the trash.

He felt awful about how he’d treated Eliot. They’d spent the day together in companionable silence; he’d had far worse, and lonelier, Christmases. And if it hadn’t been for Eliot, he would probably have never answered Maggie’s calls. Eliot couldn’t have known about Sam’s Christmas cookies.

Sophie arrived at 5:30, just after Nate had taken the cake out of the oven (as instructed).

“Happy Christmas,” she said, kissing him softly. It was the best thing that had happened to him all day. “Mmm, it smells wonderful in here!” She gaped at the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you did all this?”

Nate laughed. “I worked in the prison kitchen for six months. I didn’t go to chef school for six years. This is all Eliot.”

“When did he get here? And where is he now?”

“This morning, and home taking a shower before the big event.”

Sophie crossed her arms. “Eliot was here all day? You said I couldn’t come over until dinner, but Eliot was allowed?”

“No one ‘allows’ Eliot to do anything. I’m just not dumb enough to stand between him and a kitchen when there’s a meal on the line.”

In the hall, the incoming sound of “Jingle Bells” grew louder until it burst through the door in the shape of Parker, wearing an elf costume and reindeer antlers and carrying a boombox on her shoulder. She dragged Hardison, who was wearing an ugly sweater decorated with spaceships from various sci-fi movies, behind her.

“Merry Christmas, every one!” she announced in the cadence of Tiny Tim at the end of _A Christmas Carol_. “Everything smells so good!”

“I’m starving,” said Hardison. “Let’s eat!”

“Where’s Eliot?” Parker asked.

“Behind you,” said Eliot.

Hardison jumped about a foot into the air. “Don’t _do_ that, man! I told you, I got a sensitive system.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were behind us?” Parker scolded, hand on her hip.

“I was too busy trying to pretend I didn’t know you.”

“That hurts, man. Right here.” Hardison pointed at his chest. “Don’t you think _I_ wanted to pretend I didn’t know her? Why didn’t you help a brother out?”

“I’m hungry!” said Parker, before the bickering devolved further. “Can we eat now?”

“Not yet.” Eliot moved into the kitchen and put a hand on the cake. “Dinner needs a little more time to finish, but first I need help with dessert. There’s a bowl of chocolate frosting and cream cheese filling in the fridge.”

“I’ll get it!” said Parker.

Hardison reached the fridge first. “Let me. We want frosting left for whatever Eliot’s doing.”

Eliot flipped the cake out of the pan and carefully rolled it up like a newspaper. “This is going to be a yule log.

“Or, as the French call it, _bûche de Noël_.” Sophie grinned. “I haven’t had one since I was a little girl!”

And Nate watched as, after the cake had cooled, it was unrolled and Parker and Hardison spread the cream cheese filling inside. Then Eliot rerolled it, and everyone helped cover it in the chocolate frosting.

“It looks like poop,” Parker said, nose wrinkled, twenty minutes later.

“That’s why you gotta make the lines on it, like a log!” Hardison had, of course, pulled up a photo on his phone.

“And when it’s sprinkled with powdered sugar, like snow, it will look perfectly lovely.” Sophie had also joined in on the fun.

Nate smiled as he set the table.

“How’s Maggie?” Eliot asked, arms laden with several dishes of food.

“She’s been better. Christmas is …” Once again, Nate didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

But Eliot seemed to understand. “Glad you got to talk, then.”

“This all smells great.”

“I hope it tastes great, too. I have my doubts about the brisket.”

“Listen, Eliot, I —”

“Poop with lines on it and covered in sugar is still poop,” came Parker’s voice from the kitchen.

“Dammit, Parker!” Eliot snapped. “You helped make it. You know it’s filled with chocolate!”

 

* * *

 

After dinner was finished and the dishes were done and the yule log consumed — Parker ate more than anyone — Eliot stood.

“Thanks for doing the dishes, everyone. I’m headed out.”

He nudged Parker and Hardison, who got the hint for once.

“Us, too,” said Hardison.

“Can I take the rest of the yule log?” asked Parker.

“No, I want at least half of what’s left.” Sophie gave Eliot a long hug. “It was all delicious, but the _bûche de Noël_ was my favorite. Reminded me of Christmases back home.”

As the other three argued over portions of the yule log, Nate kept the chef from sneaking out.

“Eliot.”

Hand on the doorknob, Eliot turned.

“Dinner was excellent. Thank you.”

“Happy to do it.”

“About earlier, with the — I didn’t — I’m —”

Eliot glanced over Nate’s shoulder and nodded. Nate followed his gaze to Sophie, Parker, and Hardison laughing over chocolate. “This worked out better anyway.” He turned again to leave.

But something had been nagging at Nate all evening. “You could have prepped the dinner at your place and brought it all over. You’ve done it before. You’ve said yourself your kitchen’s nicer. Why spend the day over here?”

Eliot regarded Nate for a long moment, then asked, “Why didn’t you make me leave this morning?”

Because he could tolerate Eliot. Companionable silence was better than lonely silence. Just the presence of another person had kept him from getting lost in memories. And to only two bottles of whiskey. That was definitely a record. All things considered, this was one of his best Christmases in years.

Maybe he hadn’t been the only one to feel that way.

Eliot nodded. “Merry Christmas, Nate.”

“Merry Christmas, Eliot.”


End file.
